The Field Hospital: Covering parish life

Peter Feuerherd | Apr. 20, 2016 NCR Today

The Field Hospital
Taken from The National Catholic Reporter

Editor's note: "The Field Hospital" blog series covers life in U.S. and Canadian Catholic parishes. The title comes from Pope Francis' words: "I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. . . ."

If you have a story suggestion, send it to Dan Morris-Young (dmyoung@ncronline.org) or Peter Feuerherd (pfeuerherd@ncronline.org).

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Terry Humenik, pastoral associate at St. Jude Catholic Community in DeWitt, Mich., a part of the Diocese of Lansing, says that ARISE, a program developed by RENEW International [1], is making an impact.

The process at St. Jude's began in October 2015. Since then, the parish has hosted small group reflection meetings involving about 100 parishioners. Out of that process has emerged a greeters' ministry at Mass and social outreach, including one group who collects items for refugees that could not be purchased with food stamps; another group even "adopted" two refugee families. Another participant has been visiting shut-ins at a local nursing home.

St. Jude parishioners also participated in the Back to Work closet, a program at Holy Angels in Flint to "help the people there to overcome the widespread poverty and unemployment that has grown for the past 30 years," wrote Humenik. The Back to Work Closet assists Flint residents with proper attire for job interviews. Flint, famous around the country for its water crisis, is part of the Diocese of Lansing.